Pay no attention to the people behind the curtain

Sunday, March 22, 2009

What? Conservative bloggers have double standards? You're kidding!

by folkbum

Last week, Assembly member Don Pridemore (R-Bad Judgment) put out a press release, on Assembly office letterhead, with his Assembly office phone number as the contact number, urging people not to vote for Tony Evers for state superintendent on April 7. In fact, the closing line of his release is clear: "These issues alone make Tony Evers a bad choice to lead Wisconsin’s Department of Public Instruction into the future."

He stops just short of saying to vote for the other candidate*, but I bet if you called his office number and told whoever answered that you read his press release and wanted to know what else you could do, you'd get that bit of instruction. What else are they going to say?

In other words, Pridemore is pretty clearly campaigning against Evers.

Two weeks ago, a CESA employee sent an email campaigning for Evers through his work (i.e., state) email address. The conservative half of the Cheddarsphere--well, some of them--went ballistic. Some outright lied about the Evers campaign's involvement in the matter, mostly following the lead of Milwaukee yakker Mark Belling, who "broke" the story by lying about it. Belling claimed, "the campaign of Tony Evers, candidate for Wisconsin Superintendent of Public Instruction in the April election, is using state resources to campaign to state workers to try to raise money for the campaign." That was, of course, 100% false. (As far as I know, he's never issued a correction, either.)

So a check of those same bloggers for anything on Pridemore turned up ... guess how much outrage? If you guessed zip then go to the front of the class. Nothing here. Or here. Or here**. Or even here. A search turns up a one-line dismissal here, and that's the extent of conservative commentary on the matter.

Let's just put this one in the ever-growing pile of conservative double standards, eh?

* I wonder if the Fernandez supporters who scour the net looking for anything about her find Pridemore's failure to use her name "immature" and "disrespectful," or if we just add that to the pile, too?